𝖆𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖑𝖘 𝖍𝖆𝖛𝖊 𝖓𝖔 𝖌𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖗 𝖇𝖚𝖙 𝖑𝖔𝖙𝖘 𝖔𝖋 𝖘𝖊𝖝

HEY REMEMBER THE LAMP THING

WHERE DEAN DANCES WITH A LAMP AND THEN GARTH AND BESS DANCE AND DEAN LOOKS AT THEM LONGINGLY BECAUSE HE WANTS A PARTNER AND THE ONLY LOGICAL OPTION FOR THAT IS CAS NOW

CAS HAS ALWAYS BEEN A LAMP! REMEMBER THE BED META FROM SEASON 9

WHERE HALF THE BED IS EMPTY. LIKE SOMEONE SHOULD BE THERE. ITS ILLUMINATED BY A LAMP

THIS HAPPENED RIGHT AFTER GADREEL LEFT WHICH MEANS IT HAPPENED RIGHT WHEN CAS WAS ALLOWED BACK IN THE BUNKER BUT HE DIDNT COME BACK BECAUSE ANGEL ARMY BLA BLA

ALL IM SAYING IS CAS IS LAMP AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN LAMP

He really has always been lamp. In the earlier seasons, they did a lot of stuff with angels and light fixtures -- obviously you have the light bulbs exploding all over the place, and then you also have visuals like these (screencaps from hotn):

With the light acting as a sort of halo. They didn’t just do it with Cas -- they did it with other angels too, like Anna -- but Cas got a lot of it.

Lamp = angel

Which, by this point in the story, pretty much means

Lamp = Cas

The Meaning of "On The Head Of A Pin"

According to Wikipedia, questions such as “Can several angels be in the same place?” and “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” refer to common topics of discussion among medieval angelologists and religious scholars. The idea behind such philosophical questions was to explore the physics surrounding the existence of angels and the ways in which the angelic plane might interact with and parallel the physical plane.

In the context of the Supernatural episode, “On The Head Of A Pin” is a strikingly apt title for two main reasons—both in-story and out-of-story. For one, this is the episode in which Castiel was originally supposed to die. As we know, however, his unexpected popularity forced the writers to have to think, precisely, in terms of how many angels could fit into their narrative, thus making it necessary to rework the story to allow space for Castiel. As such, “On The Head Of A Pin” is a pivotal moment in the story of Supernatural, as the point at which the question of exactly how much room there was for individual angels in the narrative space had to be addressed.

In terms of the story itself, the title can also refer to the fact that this is the first episode in which we learn that angels can in fact be killed, as well as are allowed to see this happen for ourselves, both in the case of the female-vesseled angel in the opening scene and, later, when Anna kills Uriel. It is, therefore, this episode in which we learn of angels’ potential vulnerability and, moreover, that conflict between angels does in fact occur, not only in the case of Lucifer’s expulsion from Heaven, but in the current events surrounding the impending apocalypse.

When Castiel learns of Uriel’s plan, he is shocked at his rebellion:

URIEL: I only killed the ones who said no. Others have joined me, Cas. Now, please, brother, don’t fight me. Help me. Help me spread the word. Help me bring on the apocalypse. All you have to do is be unafraid.

Here, Uriel gives Castiel the classic “this town’s not big enough for the both of us” speech, offering Castiel the binary choice of being either with him or against him. For Uriel, Heaven has no room for angels that don’t fit in with his plans, and he thus frames the conflict between Castiel and himself as a kill-or-be-killed scenario—a choice, which, of course, is made by Anna, Supernatural’s earliest angelic champion of choice, when she stabs Uriel from behind, saving Castiel’s life.

This situation is, therefore, posed as a sort of corollary to the above-mentioned questions. That is, can the world support an angelic host at odds with itself? If medieval angelologists were concerned with how many angels could simply exist in one place, then, season four of Supernatural is concerned with whether angels must necessarily cohere if they are to coexist, asking what happens when a stalwart—though rather codependent—alliance begins to break down into shockingly incompatible individuals.

Sound like a couple of brothers we know?

Castiel and board games [♤]

I thought the idea of Cas trying to communicate through board games was truly fantastic. I’ve rarely seen such well-thought out metaphors in any movie, let alone a TV-show. Unfortunately, though, I guess this was mostly lost on the general audience; a friend of mine who watches the show thought Castiel totally went nuts and considered the board games thing as funny bordering on ridiculous. However, when I told her what I thought it was all about, she admitted that she hadn’t thought about it that way because the show hasn’t been THAT deep for a very long time. Which, unfortunately, is true.

But let’s talk a little about the games he’s asking Dean to play. There have been a lot of fantastic posts on “Sorry”, so I am going to limit myself to one particular aspect I found interesting. Both Sorry and Twister are no games involving clever tactics and strategy. They also don’t involve teamplay. You get an order and you follow through with it. That’s it. And if you fail, you have to start again. It’s pretty easy, actually. There are rules, but none of the players made them. While both games may involve “decisions”, they are minor and have to be made within a certain frameset.

So I think beside that fact that Castiel is communicating through board games, he’s also communicating something about himself: He feels safe in a world that has clearly stated rules, a world in which he can follow orders, a world in which he can’t make any more mistakes, because someone else made the rules.

This theme is further elaborated with the bee-metaphor. There have been fantastic posts on that, too, but I still believe the main point is that in bee-society, every individual has its place as part of the group. You’re just part of the bigger picture and you have a role to play. That’s it. No difficult decisions, no choices, no Free Will.

Clearly, these are all things Castiel associates with life as an angel (even though this may be a little nostalgia on his part, too). In 7x23, he’s talking about bees and then, all of a sudden, switches to his garrison. One might think that for him, it’s one and the same thing. As most of this started in 7x21, I think this is Edlund foreshadowing Castiel’s journey in season 8. Already in 7x21, Castiel is “gravitating back”, longing for all the things he’s lost, and eaten alive by the guilt he feels for all the things he’s done. Clearly, for him, acting on your emotions, acting because you made a choice, has turned into something terrible, something dangerous he wants to avoid at all costs.

Castiel believes if he could only go back to what he was, an angel following orders, then things would be ok again. For him and for everyone he’s hurt. He believes that as soon as he’s asked to make a choice, he’ll do the wrong thing. Because that’s how he feels about himself now. His self-esteem is right there with Dean’s: It’s virtually non-existent.

Quite frankly, I wonder where this will take him in season 8. I guess that he’ll have to come to terms with his own past and present to decide on his future. Seeing that his story is so much about choices and accepting the consequences of Free Will, I wouldn’t be surprised if season 8, for him, will lead up to a really important, maybe life-changing decision he’ll have to make all by himself.

Oh God.

There are a grand total of nine angels in Heaven, present company included. And one or two on Earth, and that’s all.

Everyone knew about George. Nobody liked it. He’s to blame for that entire “diapers and wings” art representation thing.  The rest of the Cupid were still pissed, centuries later.

Important tangential question: who is to blame for Cas constantly having to deal with Dean accusing him of owning a harp?

Didn’t Zachariah put a harp in that place that time

As if we needed more reasons to stab him :P

An Open Door

I was wondering why the show choose to kill off so many angels right after introducing a plot about them going extinct.  So far this season has had a relatively low number of angel deaths compared to the number of fights we have seen against them. I think this scene was to show the angels where their current path will lead them…to their extinction.  Forcing Jack or anyone else's help is not the way to solve their problems. They are going to have to openly ask for help. 

In the final scenes of 13x09 we are shown some angel wing prints. Except they are placed a lot higher than normal up on a wall.  If you watch this scene the camera pans directly to the right at the same hight as the wings we see this…

An open door, illuminated with a warm yellow light. I think this is showing the two paths the angels can go metaphorically. Why else show us this door? And why else have it at the same exact height as the angel wing prints? Angel wing prints are very symbolic of angel death. So on one hand, we have death and on the other, we have this open door.  An open door that is very symbolic of a way out, of a solution, illuminated with yellow. 🤔 I don’t think this is referring to Jack here because the angels have tried Jack and it got them this…death.  They didn’t ask very nicely or openly though so maybe that’s all they need to do. 

I don’t think Jack is the angel’s open door. I think the open door is Castiel. You can even see the silhouette of an angel right beside it. 

The angel’s demanded Castiel’s help before and he refused. One they demanded it and two it was important that Cas refuse the first time they asked.  I talked a little about this trope in a post I made about the monomyth.  But basically, Cas refuses to help his own kind before later helping them.  I think the angels will have to ask nicely though and openly without any tricks. Otherwise, all they will get is extinction. 

I would love to get @tinkdw thoughts on this scene because I know that she thinks Cas will save the angels as well. 

I keep thinking about longing, praying and the fact that Cas can sense lies and it seems therefore conscious emotions or thoughts (outside of the truth being situational)… do u have thoughts on how things links together at all?

I feel like it’s about emotional sensing rather than mind reading - some empathetic wave lengths of sorts?

Yeah, angels can sense emotions, although I’m not sure how much it crosses over between conscious mind reading or stuff coming specifically from the other person… 9x06 had the Rit Zien who could sense pain and followed it in basically exactly the same way the longing retcon seemed to work with Cas finding Claire in 10x10. But she was apparently giving off that desire to talk to Cas specifically FOR Cas and it was equated to praying, while the suffering in 9x06 seemed to be something the angel was designed to sense extra hard, whether the people giving it off needed him or not, and they definitely weren’t directing it at him.

Cas admits to reading Dean in season 4:

I think that is very specifically Cas choosing to read Dean and a form of involuntary mind invasion. I don’t think he does it all the time, just in the middle of that argument, and probably other times early on when he wanted to know how Dean was feeling when he was being Difficult. I’d guess he doesn’t do it any more because part of his process of becoming friend-shaped Cas was learning basic boundaries like personal space and stop watching me while I sleep, Cas.

He definitely doesn’t consciously check people are lying all the time or he would have a much, much, much easier life. Ketch asking him to check if he was lying sort of points out how Cas DOESN’T normally do it, but also reminded us that the truth is situational, depending on how you craft your lie and what you personally believe anyway etc etc - and Cas does know enough about lying to know he can’t rely on it unless someone is being REALLY sketchy anyway. Ketch was being sketchy and he tried to call Cas’s bluff like hey you could prove I’m not sketchy, which is the sketchiest thing you could do… :P So of course Cas scowled at him like nope, you’re being a dick and I don’t have to believe you even if I can read you.

I do kind of see it as a does the angel have to ask or do you bother the angel with it sort of thing, like, is it in Cas’s inbox or outbox? I think Cas reading people either deliberately or if he just gets vibes from them, would be a sort of outbox thing where it’s about his powers specifically going to collect that from the other person. And prayers, spoken or unspoken, are sent to him completely out of his control. Although I would guess in 10x10 when he focussed in on what Claire was asking to find her, it was more voluntary than normal since it was an unbroken feeling to follow, it’s still something she was sending to him and he could just track it, rather than him reaching out to find her.

(And tbh that was necessary because she wouldn’t be warded against angels unless there’s something they’re not telling us so it makes more sense that it’s a general mechanic and explains how Cas might be able to find Dean rather than Claire, since he IS warded.)

Some other instances that come to mind are the Cherub in Season 5 (who openly invited Cas to read his mind) and Cas’s very first appearance, when he could tell that Dean didn’t think he deserved to be saved.

I’m guessing there’s a lot of different factors that can play into whether/how well angels can do this.  The species of the person they’re ‘reading,’ their willingness to be read, or even their basic personality (how emotionally open are they in general? How important is it to them to be understood or to communicate their feelings?  How strong-willed or suspicious are they?) may affect whether or how easily it can be done.  And possibly just whether the angel is paying attention or is thinking about that person: Cas may have heard Claire in part because she was also on his mind at the time.

And of course there was Jack calling out to Cas, earlier this season.  It’s very much implied that he was able to reach him even in the Empty because he’s a Nephilim and he just has that much power.  But would Cas have been able to hear him, even so, if Jack hadn’t also been in a state of high agitation and very much wanting and needing him to hear?  Assuming he’d gained control of his powers, could he have done it casually, in other words?  There’s no way to be sure, but my guess is that power alone isn’t enough; without that element of yearning, it wouldn’t work.

Different types of angels, and individual angels, undoubtedly are better or worse at this, too.  The Rit Zien need to be able to do it to do their job, and I can’t imagine that the Cherubs could do theirs effectively if they can’t easily tell whether someone’s in love.  Cas is pretty empathetic for an angel, and he actually cares about how people feel.  In contrast, as an example, Uriel made it pretty plain that he didn’t give a rat’s ass how Dean felt about being asked to torture Alistair.  It may be a skill that can be developed or neglected like any other ability, in which case Uriel may actually not have been all that good at it (though he was perceptive enough to tell that Dean had slept with Anna, it wasn’t clear just what he was ‘reading’ in that instance: Dean’s mind or emotions, or some sort of residual trace that she’d left on him.)

Castiel isn't a native English speaker

and I wish the spn writers were more aware of it.

Do you know how many times I had to stop myself from using a German turn of phrase while speaking English or French?

I wish that sometimes Cas would use these really weird similes and metaphors that are a direct translation from enochian, so it’s Dean and Sam who have to ask for clarification to understand what he means.

In other words, I wanna see more scenes like “assbut” and “you speak with the mouth of a goat”.

On a somewhat similar note, there’s no spn fanfic trope I love more than “Cas swears like a sailor in enochian”.

Cas isn’t just a different species, he’s from a different culture and I wanna see more evidence of that!

He’s also ancient, older than humanity at the very least. Even if he speaks English fluently, he’s bound to have picked up some phrases that went out of use millennia ago.

I know those didn’t go out of use milenia ago, only a few centuries, but this really reminded me of this victorian slang post that crossed my dash a while ago.

Just imagine Cas at the dinnertable with the brothers:

Cas: I realise that you used to believe that I was really banging up the elephant …

Sam and Dean in unison: that you what???

Cas *hesitates*: Do you not know that expression? I heard it in London a while ago … Oh! Is it one of those regional expresion? I can never quite tell which ones are universal and which aren’t.

Sam: Cas, when did you pick up that expressin?

Cas: It must have been at some point during the 1800s, why?

Dean: then it’s not a regional thing, it’s a fucking century thing!

Cas *grumpily*: well, it’s not my fault that you humans don’t know what the word consistency means

Dean used to make fun of Cas for it until he realized Claire does the same thing to him with memes and stuff…

“I am NOT old like Cas. I’m not even forty!!”

“Yeah, so…you’re ancient. Just accept it, old man.”

flyingfish1 replied to your post “Okay. So. Cas has the most sacred oath thing. But, in the last episode…”

That is a very good point but I LOVE that concept. Can angels and demons have children? Can we even imagine a half angel half demon child? What would that even be like? A nephilim but MORE powerful? The anti Christ was half human half demon, and he was powerful enough, and a nephilim is supposed to be pretty powerful too…

Oh gosh we really shouldn’t give them ideas or this’ll be the plot point for season 14. :P

I guess if the sacred oath is purely related to humans/angels then fair enough, as that is what was said, but I can’t imagine there isn’t an equally strict rule against being with demons… though maybe there isn’t a rule in place simply because no angel would even CONSIDER the IDEA of bedding a demon. Hmmm… 

Honestly I still can’t quite believe you just uncovered a potential concept that this show has not yet covered in its entire 12 year history. Someone prove us wrong? Has this even been mentioned on the show?

Maybe they’d just cancel each other out and end up with a regular, powerless human baby :p Or a human with itty-bitty, useless wings and very faintly yellow eyes, and that’s it. Either that or the World-Ending Monster of Doom, who knows!

The discussion making the rounds right now is Human!Cas versus Angel!Cas as the endgame. I think the bulk of it got posted when I was in the car driving south, so I missed much of the discussion.

Here’s my opinion no one asked for (and I can’t find a good thread to attach this to, so I’m starting yet another one because I’m an asshole):

Cas choosing humanity is incredibly symbolic, and to me it represents a very real situation that happens all the time.

When I look at an ongoing plot of this show, I tend to take it out of the supernatural context and put it into a real world context in order for it to make sense, and I feel like there are times where we are meant to do that. For example, Sam’s demon blood storyline was addiction born out of hopelessness. The Gadreel storyline is another good example of this: if you take Sam’s possession out of it, Dean forcing Cas out of their home was really about protecting Sam and not Gadreel forcing Dean to throw Cas out. Another more overt example of this is the episode Red Meat, when even in an episode involving werewolves and a reaper, the show took the deals and the sacrifices and codependency in general out of the supernatural context and put it into the real world context; Sam was shot by a real gun, and Dean downed a ton of real pills.

That’s likely why I have the opinion that Cas’s endgame is humanity, because to me it’s about family, and having the ability and freedom to choose your own family.

Cas’s family has treated him like crap from the beginning. They’ve tortured him, they’ve brainwashed him, they’ve attempted to force their beliefs on him, and they’ve given him ultimatums. They come to him when they want or need something, and not because they actually want him there or respect who he is. The exceptions to this (Hannah, Samandriel) were killed.

So to me, it really seems like remaining an angel over choosing to become human is the equivalent of choosing an abusive family over a better one, whereas choosing humanity is realizing where his real family is.

It’s not about power. It’s about chosen family.